The Good Place S2E5 Review

Deception while learning to be a good person is what's going on this week on The Good Place, as Team Cockroach's plan is in action.

S2E5 "Existential Crisis"
Chidi tries to teach Eleanor and Michael ethics this week, but Michael struggles with it, because he doesn't ever really think about death, like humans do. Chidi gets Michael to contemplate retirement and not existing anymore, which leads to Michael having an existential crisis, and then a mid-life crisis. Both the existential crisis and the mid-life crisis give Ted Danson a chance to shine, and he definitely does great. I especially loved his arrival at the party. This show has many great aspects to it, and one of the more overlooked ones I believe is the opportunities it gives Ted Danson to play quite a variety of personas, and this episode is a great example of that.

Eleanor is the focus of the flashbacks this week, and with Michael having to contemplate death, the flashbacks deal with death as well. A flashback to Eleanor's childhood shows when she learned about death. Her mom makes up a fake story about what happened to her dog, but then quickly gives up, and admits it's all fake. The line "There's no such place as Guam" was hilarious. A second flashback is at Eleanor's dad's funeral, and her mom is hilarious here as well, as she hits on Eleanor's boyfriend. It also drives home the point that Eleanor's mother was awful. The third flashback, instead of focusing on death, deals with Eleanor's family issues more directly. It does go a bit overboard, as I would expect Eleanor to hide her feelings rather than crying in the middle of a store.

Vicky's torture in this episode is having Tahani plan a party that no one attends because there's a better party. There are some funny Tahani moments as she plans for the party, but nothing at all extraordinary. This story gets better though when Tahani contemplates how something like this made her so sad. Jason comforts her, which leads to funny moments, but is also sweet. Jason's ranking out of 13 where 8 is the highest is hilarious. I started laughing so hard because of it. The two end up sleeping together, which is surprising, since I thought Jason was going to end up falling for Janet again, like he has multiple times. Also, I got a good laugh out of Jason saying: "I know how to make cereal."

Once again, The Good Place delivers a strong episode. Ted Danson was the highlight, but the Eleanor flashbacks provided great insight and laughs, and it was nice to see Jason comfort Tahani.

Score: 9.5/10

What did you think of "Existential Crisis"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!